


Thrombophilia

by universe_c



Series: Fifth Iteration [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Drunk Sex, Fifth Iteration 'verse, M/M, Mpreg, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Pregnant Sex, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:37:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/universe_c/pseuds/universe_c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The most frustrating thing about Cronus isn't the way he hits on everybody but you, or the cruel way he dismisses things when his attention span runs out. It's that you can See all the good he could do for the community and no one else does. Especially not him.</p><p>A 5I 'verse side-fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [caliwonk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caliwonk/gifts).



> This is the first of an ever-increasing number of little side-fics for the Fifth Iteration 'verse. Most of them consist of me asking myself 'what is actually going on with this pairing?'
> 
> Caliwonk, this is for you. Your comment reminded me that I have SO MANY CronKri feels, and then I had to write this to get them all out.
> 
> You might have a hard time following this fic unless you've read Fifth Iteration first.
> 
> You can follow me on either [Tumblr](http://universe-c.tumblr.com/) or [Dreamwidth](http://universe-c.dreamwidth.org/) for updates, meta and extras.

The most frustrating thing about Cronus isn't the way he hits on everybody but you, or the cruel way he dismisses things when his attention span runs out. It's that you can See all the good he could do for the community and no one else does. Especially not him. 

You are the Seer of Blood and it is your responsibility to See these things about people and make them known. 

His problem has always been with society, you think. He's tried hard to check his privilege and reexamine his preoccupation with his caste status for you. You know how deeply internalized such societal conventions can be. You try to show him alternatives. He is a Bard and an artist and a dreamer, so you appeal to his imagination. Luckily, human society presents itself as an example, in all its muddled, hemospectrumless strangeness.

He listens to you. Sometimes you think him listening to you is his way of hitting on you, like he can tell how refreshing it is to be taken so seriously. If you can get him to listen long enough, maybe some seed of an idea will take root in his consciousness and he will start to grow. 

You don't appreciate how hard it is for ghosts to grow as people until you come back to life. 

On this new world, this empty world, you are all given a chance to come together and create not just a new life for yourselves, but a new society, stripped of all the systemic oppression of history. Of course it's not so easy as all that. The minutiae of creating a society turns out to be essentially the same as the minutiae of managing any small group of people, an endless round of defusing arguments and building consensus. You are the Seer of Blood and it is your responsibility to keep this strange, patchwork group of personalities and cultures functioning well enough that no one re-dies of starvation, exposure or random murder-sprees. You can See the fault lines running through and between the four sets of Players, the individuals who might make those fault lines slip in catastrophic ways. 

Cronus is one of them, his capacity for the Destruction of Hope as dangerous as his abrasive effect on people or his occasional temper tantrums. 

You have known him for untold aeons. By now you understand that the only way to make his good side known is to drag it out of him kicking and screaming. And you can See that it is up to you. The only other person receptive to him is his dancestor, and the pair of them will be bad for each other in so many ways. You can't possibly allow them to become close.

You take time for a little soul-searching on whether becoming his moirail is compatible with your vows of celibacy. You conclude that it is maybe not one hundred percent in keeping with the spirit of said vows. However, it is acceptable enough and _necessary._

Getting him in a pile is easy and natural as if you've been doing it forever. He lets you wash all the grease out of his hair and sighs against your chest while you hold him. You don't anticipate how much better he makes _you_ feel, his support for your undertakings as devoted as you could've asked for. He even likes your belt.

You don't admit to yourself until much later that you've essentially been acting as Cronus's moirail for a very long time. If only you'd thought to ask, you could have had this so much sooner. That revelation comes to you in the dizzy afterglow the first time you pail him. You chalk the whole incident up to the wine and make a mental note to avoid it in the future.

Your new, strange, patchwork body makes this harder than it should be. Celibacy was much easier when you were dead, your body and its needs nothing more than shifting memories. The way Roxy breaks out the wine at the slightest excuse doesn't help. Neither does his smooth swimmer's body or the way he always smiles at you like he's genuinely happy to see you. Once, you catch yourself mentally cataloging all the differences between his new body and his troll body with your own fingers twisting slick in your nook. 

The way your body is no longer fully under your conscious control is frankly a bit frightening. Corporeality will take time to get used to again, you remind yourself. And this corporeality works differently from the troll body you still remember intimately. Every single person in the village is going through similar adjustments, each at their own pace.

The second time you pail him, the two of you pass out curled together on his human-style respite platform with all its rich purple coverlets and strewn pillows. You have never slept touching another person before. You wake, twice, with your head still spinning drunkenly. His body against you is too warm, strange and dear. He wakes you in the evening with his mouth on your bulge. Your hold on his horns is perhaps a bit rougher than strictly necessary.

You don't talk about it later. You fully expect him to bring it up during a feelings jam, but he never does. All of your carefully prepared speeches go unsaid.

Rose is happy to elucidate the human take on pale and red affection for you. It is a perspective that helps stave off your creeping panic. You can see immediately how the human preference for multiple pale partners creates strong social groupings. It makes perfect sense for a Blood player to fall into such a mindset, with their innate focus on group dynamics. Just look at Karkat, village pale stud and would-be lusus to half the younger Players. Pair that natural outflow of conciliatory feelings with mammalian-style always-on reproductive urges and pale-red vacillation is the inevitable result.

You decide that your moirallegience with Cronus can withstand a few humankin-style, exploratory sexual encounters. Now that you think about it, he has actually been much better behaved since the two of you were first intimate. It helps that some of the people he's worst around, like Mituna, have taken themselves elsewhere. So long as he's improving, you are happy with the way things are. 

Later, you will spend many hours wondering how you failed to Foresee getting him pregnant, and wondering if knowing ahead of time would have made any difference.

^^^

“Oh my gog, Kankri, are you drunk?”

“I'm always drunk when I let you-”

“Whoa, whoa. I seem to recall some incidents in which I was the one letting _you._ Not to mention the rather forceful way you just deposited my fine fishprince ass on this respite platform. Not that I mind-”

“Yes, you never mind. Any port in a storm or other nautical euphemisms to that effect.” 

“Fuck, fuck, Kankri. In case you hadn't fuckin noticed, I am so obsessed with you. Like head over gills, stalking your pink ass, carving your lack-of-a-symbol in my arm creepily obsessed.”

“Yes, Cronus, you are a bully and a drama queen. I'm well aware.”

“You know I ain't above takin advantage of you neither, 'specially not with this crisis occurring in my nook, so. Just. Aah-aaah what the hell are you – fuck!”

“Well, don't bite me unless you want me to bite back. Egalitarian relations and so on.”

“That was the filthiest chuckle I've ever heard. Didn't know you had it in you. Fuck, you are going to kill me. I will literally die if you don't pail me right this instant. Come on, make a human woman out of me you red-hot landdwelling pedantic graaah, ah - FUCK!” 

“Is this enough of my attention for you?” 

“Fuck, no. More.” 

“Hmmm, how's this?” 

“Nhh, aaah, oh fuck you kinky -AH!”

^^^

After his heat, nothing can be as it was. He is stiflingly clingy now that he's got you corralled into his red quadrant, where apparently he was angling to get you all along. You should be bothered by that. Instead, you want to tear a hole in anyone who so much as looks at him, when you're not wanting to tear into him for daring to look away from you. The violence of your desire for him is equal parts horrifying and addictive.

You don't even have a moirail now, to jam it all out with. When you try to speak with him about it, he declares it “such a fuckin turn-on,” and you end up pailing _yet again._

You think you do an admirable job of maintaining normalcy, even as you go completely to pieces inside. Sometimes you can barely _think_ anymore, and it's not like any of your responsibilities have gone away. The potential traumas and shifting relationships brought on by this sudden spate of pregnancies require your attention more than ever, lest some breakdown occur that could have been prevented. 

You have an embarrassing minor breakdown in the middle of a Seers' Open Dialog Committee meeting. Terezi calls you an overdramatic wiggler. Rose asks if having a healthy sex life will really make you less yourself. Terezi suggests you dump Cronus if you don't actually want to be with him. They both nod sagely when you explain that breaking up with him would likely set off some of the ugliest drama the village has seen, and that's not even taking into account any Hope-related incidents. When you add that he is _yours_ they say they know. They ask, so why don't you?

Why _don't_ you? You think about it off and on for some time. Perhaps it is a Blood thing, with your focus on the group superseding your awareness of yourself. Karkat does evince a similar blind spot when it comes to his own relationships. Or perhaps it's just that it has been untold aeons since you felt anything so strongly, so viscerally. Perhaps it's that Cronus can be such a complete douche sometimes, you despair of ever fixing him entirely.

And then the distress call comes in and you throw yourself into planning the rescue, balancing the practical necessities of the journey with the delicate interpersonal issues most likely to arise. The community is energized and drawn together by danger to its own, and you can't help but feel like some of your ragged ends are knit back together in sympathy. Your role here _is_ truly important, and this is the reminder you desperately needed.

You're so astounded when Cronus loudly, publicly accuses you of being flushed for Latula that you take far too long to answer him, the wheels in your brain turning furiously. His expression descends further and further into petulant anger the longer you fail to speak. _He doesn't know how you feel about him,_ you realize. But how could he possibly know? You've been dancing around your own thoughts for so long that _you_ barely know how you feel about him. 

You are a little bit flushed for Latula, you decide, while you're being honest with yourself. But her power to distract and discombobulate you is nothing next to his, like the Wanderer's rust-pink crescent compared to the high-summer-Bright sun. As soon as the whole rescue party business is sorted out and the crisis on its way toward solution, you take Cronus to your room and explain some things to him at length. It has not been all that many weeks that you have been officially matesprits, but in that time you have learned a catalog of new ways to keep his attention, to persuade and soothe and comfort him. It is, you discover, possible to have a feelings jam while having sex, slow and so intimate you feel torn open. You are left raw and exposed to one another in all your pettiness and stupid insecurity, your confusion and desperation. He cries, but then it's not the first time he's cried while pailing you. He's always been free with his emotions and secretly you think it's kind of sweet. The really strange part is how much better you feel by the end.

The surf is rough the night he has your egg, and the bathhouse is pressed into service as the birthing room, divided with flimsy curtains to give the three mothers an illusion of privacy. Cronus is close to panicking and Meenah is definitely panicking, so it is left to you to soothe both of them in the intervals where Jane and Kanaya are with the others. Skin-to-skin contact has always worked best with Cronus, so you strip down and climb into the stone pool behind him. You hold him as he curses and struggles and keens. You feel so pale for him that it makes you ache, so red for him that it makes you burn. The pulse between you is sharp in your Sight, that deep, throbbing and unbreakable thread that connects you all to each other, but especially you to him, and the two of you to this child that is both of your Blood.

He sings when it's over, a soft cycle of notes that moves like waves, like a heart beat, growing and shifting wordlessly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't really mean to write another chapter of this one. It just happened. So, now I need to post it so I can stop obsessing. Unbeta'd as usual.

At first, when Kankri comes to you and proposes moirallegience, you don't believe your ears. 

That lasts about a quarter of a second.

You try very hard to conceal your triumph as you say yes. You make extra sure to namedrop his bullshit celibacy schtick like the caring, sensitive guy you are without actually giving him a chance to back out. 

There's no way you're letting him back out. Not after so many untold aeons of his so-close-so-far ranty hands-off mind games. But hell, you can take a little teasing. It'll just make it all the sweeter when you finally do get into his preposterously tall pants. 

You had known – okay, hoped – when you woke up on this strange, sun-drenched planet in your new, strange body that it was only a matter of time before you'd have him where you want him. Ever since the first time he sat with you and actually listened, actually took you seriously when you talked about your feelings and your hardships, you've been reeling him in. Every casual touch, every hour wasted listening to his hemospectrum rant yet again was a tiny increment closer to him. You're such a patient fisherman, somebody should give you a fucking award. 

You take his hand and for once he lets you without protest. The slight blush across his cheeks makes you feel like you've won the whole universe. Makes you want to kiss the triggerwords right off his pouty, sassy mouth.

You get him back to his place, pile all his cushions up and have him tumbled in there before he really knows what's what. You are so fucking suave, you hardly know what to do with yourself sometimes. His room is totally bare except for the red pillows and carpets and a neat low desk meant for use sitting on the floor. That means he must sleep on this pile, all red-blood warmth and vulnerable, thin human skin. The pillows smell like him. 

You remind yourself to be careful, to not push the physical stuff too fast and undo all your aeons of hard work. You're surprised that he's the one who reaches for you, tucking your head up under his chin. His lips brush against the bed of your horn in a way that's so comforting, so intimate it knocks the breath right out of you.

You never pay all that much attention to his lectures – you've heard most of them innumerable times. But now you pay attention. Now he's got all of your attention all over him, cataloging and careful as your trembling fingers sliding over his back. 

God, he feels good. Under that bulky sweater he's scrappy and wiry and his skin is incredibly soft. You feel the curve of his bicep, his deltoid, the delicate shape of his shoulder blade. You very carefully keep your hands north of the equator, though when he strokes your hair you have to hang onto his belt like it's the only thing anchoring you. Too bad Porrim would kick your ass if you burnt the damn sweater. 

So, okay, brutal honesty time. You're not exactly the most experienced guy, even though you've read shiploads of really classy erotica. The lot of you were a little too young for all that when you entered your game. Once you were in there you were stuck with them, and he was the only one who would really give you the time of day. You got to make out with Porrim once, but you're pretty sure it was only because you were, like, the last person she hadn't messed around with. And she didn't let you get very far before she declared the whole thing a quote failed experiment unquote and you were out on your ass.

You've never told Kankri about it, because you're not sure how he'll react. It was way, way back when all of you were new to the whole afterlife shebang, before the crippling boredom of eternal non-time set in, before your campaign of seduction had very much invested in it.

You'd thought you were frustrated then. You thought you were frustrated with his mutant-blood celibate crusader thing and the long, long dance the two of you have been dancing around each other. You thought you knew how you wanted him and how badly. You had no idea.

You'll give Kankri one thing and that's how committed he is to anything he's decided on. Now that you're officially pale, he's all over you. Casual touching, in public even, becomes regular. You cuddle all the fucking time, in his pillow-pile, out in the grassy yard watching the moons, or in your own wide, human-style bed. He even touches you when you bathe together, washing your back and hair in the palest, most agonizingly wonderful way you never imagined. As the spring heats up into summer, you get him down on the beach, splashing naked in the bay. He has no idea what to do with himself in the water, so you teach him, incidentally giving him plenty of good, long eyefuls of your amazing physique and general seadweller prowess. And through all of this he's always nagging the fuck out of you to get along with people and work your fucking ass off fishing or building shit or whatever. You do all that with a will, just to get that smile out of him that makes you feel like you're worth something. 

Around then is when you realize how completely fucked you are. You have it so bad for him, and not just for his tight little butt and the way it peeks out enticingly from the bottom of the fucking sweater. You have it so bad for him you could almost be happy keeping him pale, if that's what he wants. Almost. You very carefully don't freak out or make any grand gestures or anything of the sort. You just lean on him that little bit harder, let your fingers brush over his hips slightly more often, put your hand on his thigh when you're sitting around together in some boring ass meeting.

Thank fuck for Roxy and her iron determination to make alcohol. She's a choice broad and her fermentation quest was one you'd gladly helped out on, gathering fruit and hauling water for her every time she asked. If your little douchey hipster descendant didn't have his eye on her, and if you weren't bound and fucking determined to have Kankri in the end, you might go for her yourself.

Frankly her first few batches of wine don't taste all that great, wild-fermented and improvised as they are. But they are alcoholic, and your new body is surprisingly sensitive to it. 

So is Kankri's.

You don't totally even mean to pail him that first time. Yeah, you definitely mean to kiss him. But he's the one who grabs your ass, trailing his fingers along the seam of your thin-worn jeans. It happens right there in front of everyone at the wine-tasting party, even. You're glad because you think that'll make it harder for him to ignore later. 

Maybe you shouldn't be surprised how into it he is. You've always had the fantasy that there was a beast locked up somewhere inside him, and you could be the one to set it free. You'd let him fucking shred you inside and out just to see him let go like that even once. Your head is spinning and you barely get him half-undressed, barely get your bulge wrapped tight and good around his before you both go off in a paroxysm of released frustration. He's fucking gorgeous, all flushed and disheveled and streaked with genetic material. He falls asleep too quickly, and you can't stop touching him, tasting him, clutching him.

As soon as he sobers up, he goes right back to ignoring the simmering sexual tension between you. His pale tease is almost worse than his old celibate tease, because it makes you sure that he cares about you, just not in the way you desperately want him to. 

So you get him drunk again, not that it takes all that much persuading. You coax him into holding you down and you hold him close all day, amused by his adorable, light snore. In the evening you try that oral sex thing on him that you've read about in all that kinky human erotica. You'd never guessed how wet you'd get with his bulge squirming in your throat and his hold on your horns forcing you to take it. You want him any way and every way you can get him. But, especially, you want to feel like he wants you.

Would it really kill him to just fucking admit how bad he wants you already? He seems to think so.

Going into heat is fucking excruciating, terrifying, amazing. Part of you is sure he won't come to you but then he does. Part of you is miserable that he had to get drunk first, but your nook doesn't care and your nook is in sole charge of your think pan right then. Thank fuck he doesn't abscond partway through because you don't know if you could be held responsible for your own actions.

He's got this beautiful, thick short bulge that fits you just right wherever he wants to put it. You'd let him do anything he wanted to you, red, black, pale or otherwise. You'd be anything he wanted, you swear, if he'll just put it back in you. You're dying. You're lost and burning up inside without him there. You want to keep him so close he'll never, ever be able to run from you again.

In the occasional moments where you're both somewhat lucid, he shooshes you, sponges you down, feeds you bites of fruit and bread from his own fingers. It makes you think he's planning to flip pale on you as soon as this is over and when you call him out on it he gets so defensive you know you were right.

You make him touch the growing, heavy, alien lump in your stomach. He did this to you, you tell him. He can't just leave you to deal with it alone. The end of the conversation is lost to your lust-fogged memory. But the way he holds you, the way he fucks you afterwards says that he's decided.

Later, you wish that you could trust his decision. Was this something he wanted, or something you forced him into? He retreats into himself just like you knew he would. Being his matesprit somehow means that PDAs are now off limits, no matter how hard you try to initiate them. It almost makes you wish you'd let him flip pale on you. You argue with him as much as you can, anything to keep him where he'll look at you. You tell him things you don't mean, and things you do. You're not sure which is worse. 

Only the really hot, possessive sex makes you feel like he needs you even a sliver of how much you need him. You've been forbidden alcohol while you're pregnant and he declared that he would abstain with you. Luckily he'll fuck you when he's not drunk at all now. You love the way he'll cut off an argument with a growl and hustle you back to your room, the way he slides his hands gently across your swollen stomach then drags his nails rough down your back as he works his bulge up in you. He doesn't seem to hear you when you tell him just how much you love it. He's so far back in his own world of neurotic worrying about pointless garbage you're not sure how to pry him back out. 

Focusing on him is easier than thinking too hard about the shape you're in anyway. You're getting bigger and bigger, and it doesn't hurt exactly, but it's impossible to get comfortable. You ache in your legs and your back. You're in and out of the outhouse fifty times a night. None of your usual clothes fit, though Porrim and her little dancestor fix you up with some passable alternatives if only so you're not offending their fashionista sensibilities. You just keep reminding yourself that this whole ordeal is the tie that will bind Kankri to you for good.

You're not really able to do a lot of the physical labor you used to, so you end up hanging out and helping with kitchen duty whenever Kankri manages to evade you yet again. Gamzee's a good bro. He gives you several long, sort of rambling talks about what giving birth is actually like, which goes a good way toward unwinding some of the tension you've been carrying. He lets you hold his egg and that helps even more, somehow. He tells you he's still waiting to hear the new song you've been working on. You'd actually forgotten about that completely until he mentioned it. You started making music because you thought it would be a good way to showcase your sensitivity and increase your sex appeal. But, actually, you used to find it a good outlet to vent all the feelings you should've been telling your non-existant moirail. It helps again, now, and you crank out several pieces too raw, too full of creeping fear and doubt and hurt to ever play to anyone. You file them away in your 'private tracks' folder and go back to guilting Kankri into sleeping in your bed with you every day.

You never thought you'd ever have reason to like Mituna – he was an asshole before his little accident and an even bigger, more annoying asshole after – but now you do. Without him, you have no doubt whatsoever that Kankri would be with Latula and you'd be left out in the cold. So, yeah, maybe you're a little jealous. But how could a choice babe like that want to spend eternity with _Mituna?_ You doubt you could have ever gotten Kankri in the sack if she'd still been hanging around the village with her hair all shining teal in the moonlight and such, even if she was taken. 

So, maybe you do kind of flip your shit a little bit when you find out they're coming back. Kankri is doubly focused on his pushy organizing stuff now that his old flush-crush is in danger. You slip up and show him some of your ugly side, the part you spend so much time trying to tidy away. His non-reaction is incredibly telling, you think. And in that moment you fucking regret every fucking second of the last immeasurable aeon you spent trailing around after him like a desperate, sad little puppy. You are fucking sickeningly pathetic, and no one will ever love you unless you trick them into it just like you tricked him.

It's like a slap in the face when he finally gets around to the feelings jam you've both been needing for weeks. First, because he has to take care of every little thing for everyone else before he can do anything for his own fucking quadrants. Second because it really hits you how hard he's been freaking out the whole time, and how hard you've been freaking out this whole time, and how much effort you've both been putting into hiding it from each other. 

Sure, you're a selfish, needy, manipulative poser. Frankly, he's just as bad in his own way. You don't give a fuck how bad either of you are. You have never wanted anything so badly as you want him. But, you guess, you'd forgotten to have some hope that he might feel the same way. You guess an eternity of not hoping too hard has a way of becoming habit.

He's learned how to speak to you with his body admirably fast. You'd prided yourself on playing him like an instrument, but he isn't some inanimate box with strings to pluck after all. For maybe the first time he makes love to you and you make love to him back, cliché as it sounds when you put it that way. He talks with you the entire time, drawing words out of you that are all and only truth. You tell him things you didn't think you'd ever want to tell anyone. He hears every word as if they are worthy of his whole attention, his whole intellect and his vast acceptance. He is a Seer and he sees you stripped bare in every way. He lays himself open for you in turn and you dig your fingers in for purchase.

He lets you start touching him outside your room again. You give him more space to do his Seer thing, and try to stop obsessing over whether he'll come home to you in the morning. He very gently points out to you that you actually have other friends: Meenah, now that she's back, but also Roxy and Gamzee, John and Fef from your old fishing crew, and even Porrim. You're not quite sure how or when that happened. For the first time ever, it seems important to not fuck that stuff up.

Meenah has a complete melt-down while you're trying to lay your goddamn egg, but Kankri gets you both through it. His droning words in your ear, his pulse against your back pull you into a perfect rhythm. You feel owned down to your soul, your body and blood working only to the beat that pounds between you. 

It gives you an idea for a song. You write it, record some samples and mix it, all with your pretty red-violet egg secure in your lap. You plan to play it only for him. Instead you play it for _everyone_ – it's the first track you cue up at your housewarming party. You feel like a stupid, sentimental jerk until the moment when the pulse-pounding beat drops in and Terezi shrieks “Dance party!” and the crowd starts to _move_. He kisses you, gives you that smile that shatters your insides and puts them back together all at once. He moves with you when you grab his hips and push him onto the dance floor. And okay, it's a little awkward. He's a pretty terrible dancer. But it's a hope fulfilled that you didn't know you had.


End file.
